Does the future of computing lie in wireless mesh?
By Susan M. MenkeSep 28, 2004 NORFOLK, Va.’The Internet has replaced the PC as the chief programmable platform, Linda Zecher, vice president of Microsoft Corp.’s U.S. public sector says. Services built explicitly for the Web will supplant the current wave of Web services for legacy back ends, she said yesterday at the Commonwealth of Virginia IT Symposium. “There will be more machine-to-machine interaction on behalf of the user, without user intervention. Billions of new devices are being sold each year with computing, storage and communications capacity,” she said. These devices’ ability to connect and extend will form new local networks and transform a “wireless fabric” of devices into the next programmable platform, Zecher said. For example, consumer devices such as digital cameras will automatically seek other devices to which to communicate their photos without user involvement. “They will have Global Positioning System information of where and when the photos were taken,” so user
